Portrait
of a UTA Family
The Taylor family's association with UTA and its preceding institutions
began in 1911. It continues today through Lloyd Clark and his granddaughter,
sophomore Alida Eggen.

Hart
to Hart
Peggy Hart Lofland, her parents, several siblings, a couple of in-laws
and now her daughter have all made UTA their university of choice.

Family
Tradition
At least one member of the Latham family has taught at or attended
UTA every decade since the 1940s.

Six
degrees of education
The Saad siblingsthree brothers and three sistershave
used their UTA diplomas to launch international business ventures.

Birth
of Nations spawned UTA family affair
With the family home on land now occupied by UTA's South 40 parking
lot, it's not surprising that seven Nation siblings attended neighboring
North Texas Agricultural College in the 1930s and 1940s.

The
Kings of campus
Karen King Borta, the first of four siblings to attend UTA, anchors
nightly newscasts on KTVT Channel 11, the Dallas-Fort Worth area's
CBS affiliate.

Designed with a global viewNew dean brings international experience
to School of Architecture

Improving technology will be a priority of School of
Architecture Dean Martha Ellen LaGess, who assumes her duties Sept. 1.

As dean of the School of Architecture, my aim
is to guide UTA to a position of leadership in the expanded architectural
field that networked computing makes possible, said LaGess, a partner
with the architecture firm LaGess McNamara in London.

Initially, our work will focus on enabling
the school to make technology transfers inside the University with
other academic disciplines and outside the University with community,
industry and government.

Networked computing intertwines people and
physical places with placeless texts, images and databases.
This process creates new proximity between ideas and things that
formerly seemed far apart.

Architects can play an important role in the far-reaching
social revolution these changes bring about, but only if we combine new
expertise in the architecture of information with our traditional expertise
in the architecture of physical environment.

School of Architecture Dean Martha
LaGess
has worked with some of the most prestigious architecture firms in Europe.

LaGess, 47, is a unit master with the Architectural
Association, an internationally known private architecture school in London.
She has lectured and been a visiting critic for many organizations and
universities in Europe, Asia and North America. They include the Royal
Institute of British Architects in London, the Mackintosh School of Art
in Glasgow, Milan Polytechnic University in Italy, Hong Kong Polytechnic
University in China, Han Yang University in Korea, and Arizona, Harvard,
Rice and Tulane universities in the United States.

In addition to her academic work, she has been associated
with some of the most renowned architecture firms in Europe. In London
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she worked with James Stirling, Michael
Wilford and Associates and with Kohn Pederson Fox, for whom she served
as project manager for the development of a landmark mixed-use skyscraper
scheme for a site in the Hague, Holland.

I am very impressed with the balance that she
will bring to the School of Architecture, said UTA Executive Vice
President for Academic Affairs and Provost George Wright. She has
a very good scholarly background and has had a very successful career
as an architect.

Dr. Wright also cited LaGess emphasis on training
and mentoring architecture students to assure they are well-prepared in
their profession. Her excellent contacts throughout the United States
and Europe will greatly benefit our students and bring additional visibility
to what is already one of the states best schools of architecture,
he said. She is also committed to working with the Dallas and Fort
Worth architecture communities.

Lee Wright, the current interim dean of architecture,
noted that LaGess has worked with some of the best architects in England
and the United States. Richard Cole, dean of the UTA School of Urban and
Public Affairs and chair of the search committee, calls LaGess a
person with vision and the ability to get things done.

LaGess earned two bachelors degrees in architecture from Rice University
and also studied in the Architectural Associations Graduate History
and Theory program in London. She has 16 years experience as a professional
architect and 10 years experience as an educator.